Oh my friends, who is sufficient for these things? What shall we say
of man? Is he not indeed fearfully and wonderfully made? Here we
are, weak creatures, more liable to disease and death than the dumb
beasts round us; full of poverty, and adversity, and longings which
are never satisfied; our minds full of mistakes, our hearts full of
false conceit, full of spite and folly, struggles, murmurings,
quarrellings; our consciences full of the remembrance of sins without
number. The greatest of all heathen poets said, that there was not a
more miserable and pitiable animal upon the earth than man. He knew
no better. He could not know better. How could he, when God had not
yet been manifest in the flesh? How could he dream that the Lord God
would condescend to be made flesh, and dwell among us, and show man
His glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth--how could he dream that? And more than all, how
could he dream that God, instead of throwing away our human nature
when He rose again, as if it was too great a degradation for Him to
be a man one moment more, should condescend to take up His human
nature, His man's body, soul, and spirit, with Him into everlasting
glory, that He might feed with it for ever the bodies and souls of
those who trust in Him, so as to make them fit for us at the last
day, to share in His everlasting life? The old heathen poet knew as
well as you or I that there was an everlasting life beyond the grave;
that men's souls were immortal, and could not die: but the thought
of it was all dark, and dreary, and uncertain to him and to all
mankind, till the Son of God brought life and immortality to light,
when He was manifest in the flesh.
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